Flashes of Lightning and the Smell of Rain
by CountTheCrows
Summary: Bay Kennish's life was forever changed when she was only three. At sixteen, it was changed again when she met Emmett Bledsoe. Takes place during 2x15 "Ecce Mono" aka the AU episode. Was originally going to be one-shot, but now it will be a few chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Flashes of Lighting and the Smell of Rain

Pitch dark filled the sky as she walked home from yet another miserable night. In her world, there was no such other kind. Maybe some nights were a little less painful, but they all ended the same way; her feeling broken and belonging nowhere and to absolutely no one. To be honest, she was exhausted of playing pretend. _Oh, look everybody! Look how happy we are!_ She grimaced at her fake family's pretend image of wholesome and happy, like they were the freakin' Waltons or something. But the Kennishes were far from perfect and they certainly never made nightly declarations of love. There was no "Goodnight, Bay!" If anything, it was more "Go away, Bay."

It made her want to scream. _These are our biological children, Daphne and Toby, and Bay is adopted_. Bay is adopted. It sounded like they picked her up at the pound. And then the other families would act like good 'ole J&K did some marvelous deed, something worthy of allowing them straight into the Gates of Heaven without any provocation. _That poor child,_ they would say, _you two are such wonderful people for allowing her to stay with you. That woman had no business raising a child, let alone yours. And East Riverside of all places! What kind of a life could she possibly have there? It's full of delinquents._ Of course to the sycophants in Mission Hills there was nothing more horrible than a family who wasn't in the highest tax bracket.

And the worst part, it wasn't just strangers. She could handle it if it was; their disapproving looks, their pity. What she couldn't handle was her own grandmother acting as though she had just stepped off of a UFO. Yep. Alien Bay reporting to Planet Earth. _I'm surprised Bay is doing so well in school what with her background._ Clearly Bay was meant to be a bum due to her ethnicity. She just wanted out. Why was that so hard for her to accomplish? It's not like it was hard for her to maintain a 3.8 GPA. But finding a way out of Mission Hills seemed like it would never happen.

Her world was filled with such hypocrisy. For example, Daphne and her being sisters was such bullshit. Daphne didn't give a rat's ass about Bay. She took her to that ridiculous frat party and ditched her as if she was something akin to a wet rag in less than a minute. _Why do you always have to be the weird downer girl? _rang in her head. Weird downer girl, eh? She wasn't surprised. It wasn't as though she put forth the effort to get people to like her, especially people at Buckner. Whys should she? There was nothing of substance that place could offer; just a bunch of rich snobs focusing on where the latest party would be or who was getting humped and dumped next. What a waste of a good education. And then calling her out for having a shrink? Please. Like Daphne knew anything about a secure psyche. Bay was right; Daphne was the most miserable person she knew.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't even really hear the motorcycle until it appeared before her. When the mystery man took off his helmet, Bay had to admit he was a looker. Kind of like a young James Dean. Maybe she should have been more put off and frightened that this guy had approached her out of the blue, but she felt safe. She couldn't explain it. It was almost as if she knew him from somewhere. To be honest, Bay knew boys as well as she knew how to play beer pong or do a beer bong or whatever the hell it was called. There had been one boy who she liked and they had kissed, but after that, shock of all shocks, his attention went elsewhere.

Not that she cared. She wanted to go to a good college miles away from Kansas, with no Toto in tow. She'd meet someone at school. She was sure of that, but for now, it was better for her to be alone. Nobody else would get it, would get _her_ anyway, so what was the use of wanting or trying? Motorcycle boy started to gesture with his hands, not speaking orally. Bay tried to figure out what he was getting at.

"I shouldn't be walking here," she states. Then she asks "Are you Deaf?" but she ends up making the sign for crazy.

Motorcycle boy jots something down on his iPhone. It reads: **That's the sign for crazy. I'm not crazy**.

She laughs. "Well, that's a relief."

He starts to sign again leaving Bay to interpret. "This place bad. Ride home." She pauses for a second. He wants to give _me_ a ride home? Why? She wondered if secretly Daphne had paid this guy to come and humiliate her. Wouldn't be the first time; however, she can't stop herself from smiling a bit, both externally and internally.

"No, thank you."

Motorcycle boy (she figures eventually she'll have to get his name) asks if she's okay. _Ha!_ _You have about ten years' worth of time to listen to how okay I'm not? _she wants to ask, but she figures if Deaf James Dean is really interested she probably shouldn't scare him away with all the gruesome details. She goes with the lesser version of tonight's evils.

"No, actually I'm not. I've had a really crappy night. I don't fit it anywhere; not at home, not at school, and now I'm rambling to some hot Deaf guy who's probably going to dismember me and throw me into a shallow grave."

Motorcycle boy signed something again.

"Not dismember me." Bay smiled "And now I know you can read lips." He reached behind him and pulled out the spare helmet he had. _What the hell, Kennish? _she thinks. She's never done an impulsive thing in her life. Maybe it's time for a little adventure. After all, who knows where this could lead?

"What the hell," she says this time out loud "I live in Mission Hills."

Motorcycle boy gives her the thumbs up and she gets on the back of his motorcycle. Not knowing where to place her hands, she tentatively puts them on his shoulders, but he quickly rectifies that mistake and wraps them around his waist. "Better safe than sorry, I guess."

The ride home isn't long, but it's long enough for Bay to feel changed. For the first time ever, she feels alive. She marvels at the concept of someone you have just met impacting your life in ways you could have never imagined. Bay knows she's silly for feeling this way. After all, she literally just met him. It's hard to explain. For the longest time she was the "Don't do anything until you're 100 percent certain" gal. Don't hand in your chemistry lab without double checking it; don't exclaim your English paper on Shakespeare is an A before you spell check and read it over a few thousand times. Every decision must be made conclusively based on the theory of beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yet her body (and heart) was screaming she didn't need to do any experiment. There was no formula to calculate the compatibility or even how much sense a connection made. It was there. It was real. Their meeting was fated.

As he pulls into her driveway she is hit with the realization that she doesn't want to get off. Feeling this close to somebody, to _him,_ she stops remembering what her life was like before. Skeptical, she leafs through her internal memories like a notebook trying to determine if there was even a life worth living before. Maybe some semblance of one, maybe something that resembled a life, but not one that made you jump for joy in the morning. And if life doesn't hold that appeal, if there is nothing to make you feel connected to this world, then what is the purpose of it all? Perhaps she shouldn't be waxing philosophical on the back of his bike though, so she hops off reluctantly, unwilling to relinquish this newfound sense of belonging and kismet.

"Well, thank you."

Emmett – before getting her home he made sure to pull over and inform her of his name – signed thank you so she would know the correct sign. She signed it back while speaking "thank you."

Her art studio caught his eye. He signed paint. "Oh yeah, I paint." He was signing something else, it looked like a camera. "Photography." And he was an artist? Score two for the weird downer girl! Take that, Daphne. A hot guy gave her a ride home on his awesome bike _and_ he was an artist.

She desperately wanted to see him again.

"Well, tomorrow you could come back here and I could show you some of my paintings and you could show me some of your photography."

He smiled and signed something she couldn't quite make out, but there was a genuine look of happiness on his face. She pondered briefly if he could possibly be feeling a fraction of what she was feeling or if it was possible she was making it up entirely in her head.

"I'm assuming that's a yes?" He signed Yes which she replicated.

He put his helmet back on and drove off into the night, which suddenly didn't seem so dark to Bay anymore.

"Yes!" she said to herself.

It was remarkable that an hour ago her exhaustion had taken over and now it was as if she had just slept a full ten hours. All she could think about while walking home was getting into her bed, listening to some Toby Lightman, and shutting the world completely out, a routine she was pretty much an expert in. Now there was nothing that appealed less to her than sleep. Going to her room her laptop was her destination. Google. Sign language. As she wandered around the illusive World Wide Web memorizing some basic signs, she realized how beautiful a language it was. In fact, she had become so immersed in it she had failed to take notice of the sunrise. It was five am. Putting her laptop away, she curled into bed, this time having a real reason to dream and be hopeful. Emmett would be coming over later today.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_A/N: Just wanted to first of all, thank everybody who has taken the time to read this story and follow it or review it. A good portion of the dialogue and the events is from the actual episode, but I wanted to put some things in that we didn't see, and there will be more of that to come! Enjoy! _

She dreams of Emmett. It might be why for the first time in a long time, she's able to fall into a deep, deep sleep. She wasn't sure why sleep was so difficult for her. It just was. When she couldn't sleep she would do a myriad of things; she would paint, she would do puzzles, and her most favorite nocturnal activity was Nick at Nite reruns. Maybe it was the way family was idolized on television that drew her into old sitcoms, even if they were at times corny. She could picture herself being part of a real family, one without shams and lies as wide as the Pacific Ocean. Oh perchance to dream. So, naturally, given her problems with sleep, she was pleasantly surprised when she awoke feeling refreshed…and _happy_. Bay had forgotten what happy truly meant. Receiving straight-A's didn't even do that much to fill up her empty void; it was just something she expected of herself. No, that wasn't happy. The prospect of Emmett and a future with Emmett, that made her happy. Of course she was getting way ahead of herself. _Slow down, Bay. Don't go picking out china patterns just yet_. But still, there was a newfound sense of hope. And what was strange was her family picked up on that. During breakfast her chipperness even put Daphne off.

"What's with you? You're not your usual morose self." Bay rolled her eyes. Daphne would _not_ get the chance to ruin this.

"I guess I'm just feeling like I can be the weird upper girl instead," she replied, shrugging her shoulders and placing her cereal bowl in the sink. Truthfully she can't even remember what she did the rest of the morning. The only memory is hearing the doorbell and Daphne call out "Bay, some guy's here to see you." She comes to the door wearing her Pussy Riot t-shirt, her favorite. Even though it had been less than fourteen hours since she had last seen him, she's a bit taken aback by how sexy he is. James Dean reincarnated for sure.

"Hi, come on in," she says excitedly.

"Who is that?" he asks, taking note of Daphne's presence.

"My sister," she responds while simultaneously signing. He gives her a thumbs up, clearly impressed with her use of ASL. "Yeah. I stayed up late learning a few signs."

"Cool."

There's a moment, a beat, in which they are both smiling. Then Emmett starts to say something.

"We don't look alike. Yeah. She's not _really_ my sister." He just nods, knowing that there's more than she's letting on, but not pressing her on it. "It's a long story." Again, he simply nods. She feels so comfortable with him. There's no pressure. If she doesn't want to tell him, she doesn't have to. But she really wants to. "Why don't you come with me into my studio?"

He smiles and follows her, eyeing all the eclectic furniture. _God, I hope he doesn't think I'm some rich bitch_. When he comes upon a rooster statue three feet long, he just stares. An internal groan lets out. "What can I say? It really adds to the ambience." A few minutes and a few other figurine animals later, they are in Bay's studio and she is furiously showing him her sketches. She's never shown them to anyone before. But he's different; he's special.

"I keep drawing pictures of what I imagine my real mom to look like. Like does she have my hair or my eyes. I pass people on the street and I keep thinking that could be her."

Emmett says something. She's desperately trying to remember what that sign means and then it comes to her: find.

"Oh, I remember this one. Find, oh, find! I've tried, but my parents won't talk about her."

Emmett gestures list, but then she realizes he means papers.

"List? Oh, papers! Yeah, I figured there had to be something from the trial, but it's not in any of my dad's files."

He makes a motion with his hands and it looks like he's trying to tell her something about a box, and he's opening it.

"Box. Turning, turning a door, like a tiny house like a lock – a safe!"

Emmett smiles. Even in the midst of this huge language barrier, she still feels like she's able to communicate with him better than anyone else in her family. She allows herself to feel some pride.

"Ah, I'm getting good." And then it dawns on her; "We don't have a safe." Defeated. And then an epiphany. "But there's one in the car wash."

She doesn't even need to ask him to come. He just grabs her hand and leads her out to his motorcycle, as if this is a routine they have done daily for years. She actually feels as though his spare helmet was made for her. Maybe one day he'd even put her name on it. She pictures bright, red, bold font with lines sprawled out from left to right and in the middle was **Bay**. How awesome would _that_ be?

As they pull up to the car wash, she has to admit the irony in perfect do-gooder Bay performing a B&E on her first date with Emmett. She almost wished she was being recorded. Proof positive that she was not who everyone expected her to be. After they come inside, Emmett asks her if she knows the combination.

"The combination? It's probably one my dad's old baseball stats, so no." Just then the office door opens and out emerges Toby.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"What the hell are _you _doing here?" Bay asks seeing what looked like a biker gang gathered around a table playing cards.

"Just a little poker game."

"With the _Sons of Anarchy_?"

Toby doesn't respond to her inquiry, but he does notice Emmett. "Who's he?"

She doesn't really want to explain. Emmett's the only good thing in her crappy life right now and she wants him to remain that way. "A friend" is her answer, even though she wanted him to be so much more. Emmett asks if Toby is her brother. She responds by signing, not verbalizing, yeah.

Toby looks a bit confused. "He was asking who you are."

"Why doesn't he talk?" _Oh, Toby, _she thought, _stupid Toby_.

"He's Deaf."

"So, you and your Deaf buddy just decided to break into dad's office?" _Am I really being questioned by the guy who is playing poker with Hell's Angels?_ Of course she didn't say that though.

"I'm trying to find out more information about my birth mom."

"Well, this is not where he keeps his stuff."

"You know where he keeps that stuff?" Toby doesn't answer immediately. Well, if he wants to play that game, blackmail will just have to suffice.

"Toby, unless you want dad to find out about whatever's going on in there, you better tell me everything you know."

He sighs and looks quickly behind him, but then steps forward. "Okay. A long time ago I was looking for dad's playboy's in the guesthouse…"

"Nice."

"And I ran across a bunch of legal stuff about your birth mom."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You know how that is. Everybody tries to forget any of that ever happened."

She turns to Emmett.

"He says it's in my parents' guesthouse."

Once again, Emmett doesn't need to be asked and doesn't need to ask himself. He's immeshed in her world, hopefully forever. Before they get back on his motorcycle though, Emmett types something on his phone. When he's done, he hands it to Bay. It reads: **Do you mind if we take a little detour? There's someplace I want to show you.**

"Of course," she answers. Anyplace Emmett wants to bring her must be special, because _he_ is special.

She gets on the back of his motorcycle for the third time in two days, but she feels as though it's been much longer than that. When he drives his motorcycle fast through the night, it's almost orgasmic. It's as though no one, nothing can touch them. She wants it to stay that way. Suddenly all of her dreams and plans didn't hold the same appeal. If Emmett asked her to forget about college and come away on a road trip somewhere with him, she would. In a heartbeat. And it wasn't because Bay was without goals. She never wanted to be one of _those_ girls who lost herself in a relationship or a person, but with Emmett, it was different. It was the opposite. In being with him she was truly discovering who she could be and, moreover, who she was meant to be.

When his bike stopped Bay looked around at this place he wanted to show her. It was kind of rural, with a fence and you could see over the city. She fell in love with it immediately.

"This place is so cool. What's it called?"

Emmett took his phone out again. Bay knew that once she began learning more sign language he wouldn't need to use his phone as much, but right now, it was new and she was grateful that he was meeting her halfway.

**It's called Blue River Road. Do you like it?**

"Like it? I love it. It's like your own personal sanctuary, but it's not hidden; everyone can see it. Well, I don't know if that's true. Maybe everybody has access to it, but not everybody can really _see_ it, you know?

Emmett grinned, widely, and then signed slowly, but making sure to mouth the words along; "I knew you would get it."

They stayed there for a few minutes taking in the world together, leaning against Emmett's bike. Bay felt his hand come over hers. She wasn't sure if there was a true and tried way to measure the amount of electricity she felt going through her body at that exact second. Something was about to happen; she knew it. When she turned to face him, he removed his hand from hers and, instead, relocated it to her waist. He inched closer to her and with his other hand, he cupped her chin. Then he kissed her.

Bay felt her knees go weak. _How did he learn to kiss like that_ she wondered. It should be a crime to kiss a girl the way he was kissing her and making her feel the way she was feeling. It didn't make sense, and yet, it did. Emmett Bledsoe was this enigma, but a beautiful enigma. When it was over, they broke away. Bay was rendered speechless. What was left to say after a kiss like that? But apparently Emmett had something to say because he was jotting something down on his phone.

**That was for two reasons. One, because I find you incredibly sexy, and two, because if we find out something bad tonight or if it's not the news you want, I want you to have this moment to hold onto, whether it's to give you hope or just make you realize that someone wants you.**

She started to tear up. She didn't have the words to express the gratitude she was feeling right now. Emmett wanted to protect her from the world. She never had anyone like that before.

"Thank you, Emmett."

She was ready to go back with him and face whatever was in that guesthouse. With Emmett by her side she was ready to unlock all the mysteries that remained.


End file.
